96 SUCCESS OF MISSIONARIES. 



ment already so liberally conceded, would undoubtedly 

 secure the perpetual union of the colony to the English 

 Crown. 



Many hundreds of both Griquas and Bechuanas have 

 become Christians and partially civilized through the 

 teaching of English missionaries. My first impressions of 

 the progress made were, that the accounts of the effects 

 of the Gospel among them had been too highly coloured. 

 I expected a higher degree of Christian simplicity and 

 purity than exists among them or among ourselves. I 

 was not anxious for a deeper insight in detecting shams 

 than others, but I expected character, such as we imagine 

 the primitive disciples had — and was disappointed.* 

 When, however, I passed on to the true heathen in the 

 countries beyond the sphere of missionary influence, and 

 could compare the people there with the Christian natives, 

 I came to the conclusion that, if the question were 

 examined in the most rigidly severe or scientific way, the 

 change effected by the missionary movement would be 

 considered unquestionably great. 



We cannot fairly compare these poor people with our- 

 selves, who have an atmosphere of Christianity and en- 

 lightened public opinion, the growth of centuries, around 

 us, to influence our deportment ; but let any one from 

 the natural and proper point of view behold the public 

 morality of Griqua Town, Kuruman, Tikatlong, and other 

 villages, and remember what even London was a century 



* The popular notion, however, of the primitive church is perhaps 

 not very accurate. Those societies especially which consisted of con- 

 verted Gentiles — men who had been accustomed to the vices and 

 immoralities of heathenism — were certainly anything but pure. In 

 spite of their conversion, some of them carried the stains and vestiges 

 of their former state with them when they passed from the temple to 

 the church. If the instructed and civilised Greek did not all at once 

 rise out of his former self, and understand and realise the high ideal of 

 his new faith, we should be careful, in judging of the work of mission- 

 aries among savage tribes, not to apply to their converts tests and 

 standards of too great severity. If the scoffing Lucian's account of the 

 impostor Peregrinus may be believed, we find a church probably 

 planted by the Apostles manifesting less intelligence even than modern 

 missionary churches. Peregrinus, a notoriously wicked man, was 

 elected to the chief place among them, while Romish priests, backed 

 by the power of France, could not find a place at all in the mission 

 churches of Tahiti and Madagascar. 



